There are few books about the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. I have tried for ages to find a copy of “Le Regie Truppe Sarde 1773–1814” by Stefano Ales which, from the reviews and extracts that I have seen, seems to be the seminal work on the topic, certainly for a lay audience or ‘history buffs’. Unfortunately, it is out of print—any readers of this blog fortunate to have a copy may like to comment. It is also in Italian, but that’s not a huge impediment as descriptions of uniforms are pretty universal, one can likely translate a few words, or find an Italian-speaker, or even scan pages, use object character recognition and an on-line translator. "Ah well," I thought, "I guess the information that I have been able to glean from various websites (see below) will suffice." Then I saw a recommendation for Ricchiardi’s book, one that I had previously discounted.
The title of the book is misleading, which is why I had previously decided against getting it. I did not think that I wanted a book about the campaigns in the Alps of 1792–96, relying on the descriptions that I have in other works. Additionally tomes from Helion are quite expensive, especially once ‘landed’ here. Having now purchased the book (pdf version) I have found that it is not the case. Ten of the thirteen chapters (or 138 of 175 pages) are about the “…organisation, uniforms, flags and individual armament of the Piedmontese army of the period and, finally, whenever possible, the hard life of ordinary soldiers and officers in the Alps” (p. v, Preface). A more appropriate title for the book would be “Forty-Four Months in the Alps The Piedmontese Army, 1792–1796”.
The book begins with an introduction to the royal family and rather confusing Kingdom of Sardinia, a geographically disparate state. It comprised, in 1792, the Duchy of Savoy, Piedmont, Count of Nice, Duchy of Aosta, Principality of Oneglia, territory of Loano and Kingdom of Sardinia and was ruled from the capital of Turin (Torino) in Piedmont. Ricchiardi does not discuss its formation which occurred in the second decade of the 18th century when Sardinia was added to the ‘holdings’ of the Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy. The Duke had gained the Kingdom of Sicily as part of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, a reward for his part in the War of Spanish Succession. He initially siding with Louis XIV, but changed sides in 1703 in exchange for promises of territorial gains. Then, by the 1718 Treaty of London, the House of Savoy was made to yield Sicily to the Hapsburgs in exchange for the Kingdom of Sardinia. Thus, in 1720, the Duke formally became the King of Sardinia. In 1792 his grandson Victor Amadeus III, who ascended the thrown on the death of his father Charles Emmanuel III in 1726, was King of Sardinia.
This confusing mix of the House of Savoy, Kingdom of Sardinia and dominant territory of Piedmont is why the troops in the war in the Alps 1792–95 are frequently referred to as Piedmontese; particularly since that is from where the majority of them heralded (along with Savoyards and French plus Swiss and German mercenaries). Ricchiardi mainly refers to the Piedmontese army, but calls them ‘Savoyard soldiers’ on occasion and sometimes the troops of the Kingdom of Sardinia. I will use this latter term.
The main chapters of the book cover each corps of the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia: the line infantry, converged light infantry and grenadier regiments, volunteer light troops, engineers, pioneers, artillery, supply, veterans, medical services, cavalry and even a brief chapter about the navy. Ricchiardi covers in much detail the aspects that he outlined in the Preface (quoted above). The text is supported by and cross-references colour plates reproduced from the Anne SK Brown collection as well as original plates by Emanuele Manfredi and drawings of flags by Roberto Vela.
The book does not intend “…to narrate in detail the fights of the War of the Alps” (p. v, Preface) [Again, why the misleading title?] The final three chapters, devoted to the campaigns of 1792–96 are, pleasingly, more detailed than this statement might lead one to think. Ricchiardi writes from the perspective of the Sardinian army giving us more details of the ‘exploits’ of the troops that we have come to know from the preceding ten chapters. For each ‘action’ (including the early, precipitous retreats of the Sardinian forces) we are given specifics of units, their strengths and leaders and a brief description of movements and any combat. Ricchiardi demonstrates the important contributions of terrain and logistics, along with well-conducted mountain and ‘small war’ in the ability of the Sardinian army to resist a more numerous foe, with little direct support from the Hapsburgs, division between the Austrian generals commanding the Sardinian and Austrian contingents and next to no aide from their coalition allies. His telling of the story is insightful and full of sympathy and passion for the Sardinian troops.
Sadly, as it too often the case with books aimed at the ‘history buff’, the maps included in the book—two only—lack detail and one needs to consult alternative maps so as to be able to determine the precise location of troops. Why does this occur so often? Do authors lack the resources and/or will to produce decent, detailed maps? Is there insufficient support from the publishers? Do the realities of publishing deadlines and margins result in such short-cuts? Whatever the reason or reasons, we are left far too often with an incomplete ‘product’, as is the case here.
In his acknowledgements, Enrico Ricchiardi thanks Ian Sumner for assisting with the English. It shows as, despite him performing the admirable feat of writing in his second (or perhaps his third or fourth language), the text is clear, plain English. A few exceptions demonstrate that it was written by a non-native speaker, but these nuances are minor and are pleasing to read as it means that it has remained Ricchiardi’s writing.
Less pleasing is the structure of the book. Overall, the order of the chapters and information to be presented seems logical, in the main, but within chapters and even sub-sections of chapters it is all over the place. A few examples will illustrate. In the first chapter, which I have outlined previously, Ricchiardi intends to background the King, royal family, territory of the Kingdom of Sardinia (particularly around the Alps). This he does, but at several points he goes off on tangents and into details about units, snippets of actions and individuals. The second chapter, entitled “Vittoria Amedeo III’s Army” begins as one might expect, but then goes into details about a few units (information that would be better placed in the chapter describing each of them) along with details and snippets about the War in the Alps, even though that has not yet been introduced or described. We then divert to details of instances when the King or other members of the royal family were going to the front (most of which did not occur), before switching to details about senior officers, including uniform details, then its over to medals of valour. It becomes worse in the next chapter “The Piedmontese Army in Action”, which describes nothing of the sort, but begins with the organisation and strength of the ordnance infantry, details about the promotion of NCOs, musicians, religious services, armourers, inspections, supplies, recruitment, training, finishing with details about the Swiss regiments. Next we have similar information, with fewer details, for the provincial regiments, before switching to an anecdote about the Maurienne regiment and, finally, moving on to details about the Royal Grenadiers. It really is a case of ‘it’s all there, now we just have to get it in the right order’. I was left wishing that Ian Sumner or Robert Griffith, the editor, had worked harder on this aspect.
The early chapters of the book in particular are like a having a discussion with someone who is passionate about a topic, jumping from one thing to the next, never finishing any of them and leaving one slightly bemused and bewildered. In addition, it means that there are pieces of the ‘puzzle’, for example details about the line infantry, that are dotted here and there across chapters, making them difficult to find. Fortunately, chapters four to ten are more sensibly organised, but they still suffer from repetition and information that seems ‘out of order’. This shows by the time we reach chapters eleven to thirteen. While there is plenty of interesting and useful information, as I noted above, there is also quite a degree of repetition. “Yeah, you told me that already in chapter [ x ],” I said to myself on quite a few occasions.
The plates are, in the main, clear and really useful but there are some disappointing aspects. Ricchiardi’s addition of a table of colours for the infantry regiments is most helpful. However, I was disappointed that several of the plates from the Anne SK Brown collection are presented with the faded reddish-brown coat and trousers of the original, aged plates, rather than dark blue of the uniforms. They are described correctly in the relevant section of the text, but a simple comment in the caption about the ‘antique’ colouring in the plate would have been helpful and prevented potential confusion. Overall, I was left thinking that the drawings presented on Bona’s website, his own and reproductions of Massimo Brandani’s excellent illustrations from Ales’ book, would have been more desirable.
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| The addition of tables of colours of uniform items are extremely helpful. |
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| The inclusion of colour plates with faded colours (without a note or explanation) is disappointing and misleading. |
A few errors have slipped in as well. In the chronology, it states that on 27 March 1795, “Napoleon Bonaparte takes over from Massena”. He did, of course, replace General Schérer. In fact, it is as well that the subject of the book is the Sardinian army since on most of the occasions that the command of the French army is mentioned, reference is made to the divisional or other commands and not the overall command, which leads to a few incorrect statements. I have mentioned that, pleasingly, the colour plates are cross-referenced in the text. This is marred on a couple of occasions when the reference is not to the correct plate.
Despite all of the fabulous detail regarding organisation, uniforms, arms, leaders and strength over the campaigns in the Alps and presentation of many interesting anecdotes, there is a small but important detail that was not included; the colour of the artillery pieces and train. I was especially disappointed by this as it was one of the specific reasons that I decided to purchase the book. The only indication is a plate showing grenadiers being instructed in how to arm an 8 pounder gun. In this the gun is painted natural wood with black fittings. Was this the usual colour scheme? It contradicts the light green with black fittings of a scale model of a 4 pdr artillery piece from Museo Storico Nazionale di Artiglieria. There is a photo of the latter in Rogge and Summerfield’s “Saxon and Piedmont Quick Fire Guns” on the Napoleon Series, so I decided to opt for that.
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| Emanuele Manfredi's beautiful plate of the Sardinian artillery and grenadiers. |
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| Scale model of a 4 pdr artillery piece from Museo Storico Nazionale di Artiglieria from Rogge & Summerfield “Saxon and Piedmont Quick Fire Guns”. |
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| My version of artillery of the Kingdom of Sardinia using Imex American and Hat British artillery of the American War of Independence. |
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| Two bases using the Hat 'American War of Independence British Artillery' that I received as test sprues back in November last year. The good old Airfix cannons represent the Kingdom of Sardinia's 8 pdrs. |
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| Another photo of all of the artillery with 'extras' to be markers for reloading, casualties and the like. |
More pleasing for me were the details that Ricchiardi provides for the Cacciatori del Nizzardo, which he refers to with the longer name of Cacciatori Scelti di Nizza. It was fabulous to find several pages dedicated to this unit, including formation, organisation, strength and uniforms. I first went looking for information about them back in 2024 (goodness me!). I asked Jon over at Palouse Wargaming Journal as I had seen that he had painted some troops for the Kingdom of Sardinia. Sure enough he had some and kindly sent me a plate (Massimo Brandani’s from Ales’ book) along with some description of the details. I was still a bit confused though, as Brandani represented the facings as red and I had seen them elsewhere shown in pink. Ricchiardi solved this for me, telling me that they were carmine-red. An excellent plate by Emanuele Manfredi compliments his text beautifully.
Another of Emanuele Manfredi's plates, this time the Cacciatori Scelti di Nizza. 
The dismounted figures in Hat's 'American War of Independence British Cavalry' that I also received with the test sprues seemed perfect to me to paint as Cacciatori Scelti di Nizza with their light infantry caps. 
I painted them along with some of Hat's Austrian grenadiers of the Seven Year's War and Saxon grenadiers of 1806 that I had modified to represent the Cacciatori Scelti di Nizza.
I learned a lot from reading Ricchiardi’s book and found details that I had not found elsewhere. These include the aspects of the uniforms, such as the ‘wavy lace’ to denote the élite status of the light and grenadier companies, and the commanders of each of the grenadier regiments. The latter is especially useful as they changed frequently over the five years of the war, which can be confusing as the regiments are often referred to by the names of their colonels. Details such as these, along with his descriptions of volunteer and auxiliary troops, numerous anecdotes and useful descriptions of the campaigns make the book a worthwhile purchase to me.
“Forty-four months in the Alps” is a good book but with more editing, improvements to the plates and inclusion of maps it could have been so much better. I strongly suspect that Ales’ “Le Regie Truppe Sarde 1773–1814” is still the seminal work on the topic. Perhaps I’ll find a copy, one day.
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